


as the soul returns once more

by hitlikehammers



Series: Tonight, We Love (For Tomorrow The Heart May Break) [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 'Til the end of the line, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Feels, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Mid-Credits Scene, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Captain America: Civil War Fix-It, Credits Scene Fix-It, Feelings, Fix-It, M/M, Steve Rogers Feels, Supersoldiers in Love, Temporary Amnesia, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-12 23:51:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7129316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've made so many promises to one another, across more lifetimes than most people get to see. When Bucky comes out of stasis for the procedure meant to free his brain of the last of Hydra's shackles, no one knows what might happen, what could go wrong. They've survived much worse than this, though. And they've made so many <i>promises</i>. </p><p>But Steve won't pretend he isn't terrified.<br/> </p><p>
  <span class="small">Final instalment of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/469228">Tonight, We Love (For Tomorrow The Heart May Break)</a><a></a>.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span class="small">
    <b>SPOILERS FOR CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR.</b>
  </span>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	as the soul returns once more

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't seem to leave these boys just wondering, after the last bit. Nor could I let pass an opportunity to let them angst and then fix them with love and tears and such. Which should be of absolutely no surprise to anyone at this point. Love to [weepingnaiad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingnaiad) for looking things over.

Steve’s pulse is hammer-fierce; hummingbird swift where he’s curled around Bucky’s body as the dawn glimmers, soft as the gradient of it rises over the horizon: still just a glimpse, for now. Still just a threat, but coming.

No stopping it.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Bucky breathes, and Steve’s head’s on his steady-rising chest—and maybe Bucky’s heart beats a little swifter than normal, but it’s not terrified.

It believes those words, and Steve just presses closer into that body and screws his eyes closed: just wants those breaths in his hair, and that song at his ear, and light can wait.

Bucky’s right arm around him shifts, tightens, and he drops a long kiss to the top of Steve’s head, and maybe that’s what drops the tear from Steve’s scrunched-shut eyes.

Maybe.

Steve feels the warmth through the window.

It’s time.

______________________________

“We are confident in the results,” the head technician says with confidence, though her eyes feel too much; they tell Bucky what’s coming next, even if he already knows.

“We cannot,” and it’s only then that she dips her head from where it was held straight and tall; “I am sorry, but—”

“The side effects.” T’Challa raises a hand to quiet her, but also to beg her leave in cutting in as his low voice interjects at Bucky’s side. “There’s no guarantee what will ensue, once the procedure is complete.”

And yeah. That’s kind of standard, s’far as Bucky’s ever been concerned.

“And we’ve done our very best to minimize the discomfort,” one of the junior techs offers hopefully, though he’s met with a sharp glance from the woman in charge who smiles tightly at Bucky.

“It isn’t painless,” she warns gently. “But it should be nothing close to what you’ve known previously in such scenarios, if your records are...”

She swallows, but there’s no other hint at what she’s seen, what she knows about what was done.

Bucky appreciates that. 

“Well.” She nods firmly, head held high again; proud again. “It is discomfort, more than it is pain.”

Bucky smiles at her, genuinely grateful, and also very aware of Steve’s silent, too-tense presence at his back. “Thank you,” he tells her, and she nods before ushering her team to the procedure room.

“Are you ready?” T’Challa steps forward, then, ushering him to walk at his side, deliberately away from Steve, who at a glance looks as if he wants nothing more than to follow, but can’t, won’t.

Still frozen.

“I’m ready,” Bucky says with full conviction. He is. More than he can say. Win or lose: he needs the threat of them to stop following his every breath, weighing him down.

“You have a place here,” T’Challa says solemnly. “Sanctuary as long as you need, whatever comes after,” he tilts his head meaningfully. 

“And refuge in return, should and when you chose to leave.”

Bucky nods, because no _thank you_ would ever suffice, anyway.

“Do you have any requests?” T’Challa asks, voice pitched low enough that even Steve won’t hear at the distance they’ve wandered across the room. “Based upon the,” T’challa purses his lips carefully; “the possible outcomes?”

As a matter of fact, Bucky does.

“Don’t let Steve stay,” he says immediately, his tone just as deep, inaudible at any length. “If it goes bad, if I don’t remember and I can’t get it back. Don’t let him stay if it hurts him.” Bucky forces himself not to look at Steve, then, not to give the game away; his heart clenches, and his throat tightens. 

“Don’t let him stay here just to rot in his own chest, yeah?”

“I will do my best,” T’Challa replies; “but that is the Captain’s choice, in the end.”

Bucky sighs. Stupid stubborn punk. He tries again. 

“If it goes wrong,” Bucky starts; “ _entirely_ wrong,” and he thinks of the video files he’s seen, and the scattered memories he’s tried to make hurt less, and he shudders, because they don’t, they _can’t_.

Hurt _less_.

“If it goes wrong, you put me down.”

T’Challa’s eyes don’t even widen, just turn sad.

“Swear to me,” Bucky presses; “On your honor, on your family’s honor, on what it means to take the mantle you hold,” Bucky narrows his gaze at the King _and_ warrior, and “ _both_ of them.”

Bucky feels the fight go out of him entirely, because he feels Steve’s eyes—he’s drawn closer attention, and god.

Bucky feels the fight go out of him, because he’s been trying not to think about the possibility of all this leading to leaving, to _losing_ Steve—but there it is.

There’s his heart, more than his mind, more than his life, at stake here.

Fuck, but everything _hurts_.

He still has to make sure, though. Because his heart’ll be gone even if it’s beating, if he ends up, if all that’s left is...

“Do not let me live,” Bucky whispers, harsh; “if I’m only going to destroy.”

T’Challa considers him for a moment, and finally nods. 

Bucky lets out a low sigh.

“Thank you.”

“It will not come to that,” T’Challa grasps his shoulder. “I swear that to you, in turn.”

Bucky almost believes him, too.

“They are preparing the instruments,” T’Challa glances over his shoulder to the adjoining room. “Would you have me present as they work?”

Bucky shakes his head.

“You have better things—”

T’Challa’s grasp on his shoulder tightens. “Would you have me present?”

Bucky breathes in deep. “Please?”

T’Challa smiles, though it’s small. “Of course.”

He pulls back, glances at Steve and considers him for a long moment before he nods.

“I will go through,” he excuses himself. “Come in your own time. There is no rush.”

And then: it’s just him and Steve.

Bucky’s heart can’t help but start pounding.

______________________________

“Stevie,” Bucky says it, as he turns, but Steve’s already crossed the room, Steve’s already at his side, Steve’s already got his hands on Bucky’s hips, lips to his own; Steve’s already kissing him so hard, so deep that it _burns_.

“I love you,” Steve gasps, like he’ll never breath again outside these words, here and now and maybe he won’t, maybe he can’t, maybe he’ll never—

“I love you,” he speaks straight into Bucky’s mouth, kissing long and hard, breathing in life from Bucky’s body, Bucky’s presence, the _fact_ of him with more need than he’s ever let himself fall into before. 

“I’ve loved you forever, and I’m never gonna stop, you understand?” he frames Bucky’s face with his hands, and it’s not until Bucky’s own hand covers Steve’s that he realizes it was shaking. “Whatever happens, I’m not ever going to—”

And then Bucky is kissing him, giving every confession of Steve’s lips, spoken and unspoken, every desire, every devotion in return.

“Me neither,” Bucky mouths between harsh kisses, the kind meant to leave marks to be remembered by, and that cuts Steve straight to the core.

“No matter what I say, or do, or forget,” he gasps, sobs into Steve’s mouth as Steve feels the tears start to stream from his own eyes.

“There is no _me_ that doesn’t love _you_ ,” Bucky whispers, hisses, bites into his mouth as he pulls Steve closer, hips to hip and chest to chest and heart to heart and _god_ , Steve won’t survive losing this again, he won’t, he _won’t_.

“If something comes out of this, and it doesn’t,” Bucky’s voice breaks, growls into a whimper at the mere mention, the idea of him _not_ loving _Steve_ as he meets Steve’s eyes and Steve lets himself get lost in them, lets himself feel their weight in every cell just in case.

“It ain’t me, okay? That’s how you’ll know.” And Bucky’s thumb strokes slow against the gathered tears on Steve’s cheeks. “If whatever comes out doesn’t love you to the tips of his toes, with his whole fuckin’ heart, Steve,” he starts, but Steve won’t hear it. Won’t have it.

He leans and kisses Bucky again and finds the flavor of him where it’s buried beneath salt and the fear in both their tears.

“Don’t leave me,” Steve chokes out, the last thing he wants to give voice to; the only thing his heart’s working to beat. “Don’t leave me alone again, _please_.”

“Never,” Bucky vows between Steve’s lips, his tongue sealing it against every inch of Steve’s mouth. “If there was ever a choice, you’ve gotta know I’d _never_ —”

“I know,” Steve nods, sucking in a harsh breath around the urge to break entirely. “I know, I just,” and it’s selfish, god, it is _selfish_ , but: 

“I’m scared. I’m so _scared_.”

It’s the goddamn _truth_.

“Don’t be.” Bucky says, same brave face he wore the night he left for a different war—maybe an easier one, maybe one with lower stakes—at least for Steve’s own greedy soul. 

“We’ve made it through this much,” Bucky runs the bridge of his nose down Steve’s cheek, nudges Steve’s chin up to meet Bucky’s eyes. “We’ll make it through this, too.”

And Bucky’s always been a good liar, when he needed to be.

“Okay,” Steve whispers, and lets himself walk at Bucky’s side to the procedure room.

It’s just too bad that, for all that Bucky was good at stretching truths, Steve always knew.

Steve could always see it.

______________________________

 

The procedure takes hours. Steve only spends the first two bothering to fight the need to sob at the way Bucky’s body seizes, the way he moans, the way he fights his own body, his own thrashing, his own _mind_ —the way a slab of glass separates them when all Steve wants is to go to him, to fix it, to make it right; the way a slab of glass separates them, but Steve can still read every caught-gasp, every lost-beat of his heart at the thin space, the soft expanse at Bucky’s throat.

Steve’s sick with it; swallows the acid of it. 

Refuses to leave.

It’s mostly a blur, moving from Procedure to Convalescence: a recovery area that looks like the kind of day spa that Steve remembers Pepper booking into on stressful days: perfect calm, staged serenity.

Steve feels his skin crawling every minute he sits in the corner, feels his mind reeling with every horrifying possibility as he watches Bucky’s unconscious form; feels his heart twisting for every precious rise and fall of Bucky’s chest.

And it’s only when the twisting stops dead when Bucky shifts, when Bucky groans, that Steve feels like the world moves in color once more.

He’s at Bucky’s side in an instant, heat pounding, wrists trembling as he reaches out but doesn’t touch, hovers but not too close.

He can count Bucky’s lashes as they flutter, as sea-sky eyes crack open, and blink.

Steve doesn’t dare to move.

“You’re beautiful,” Bucky rasps, and Steve crumbles a little under the weight of the breath he lets out, didn’t realise he was even holding.

“Buck,” he smiles, feels a rush of heat and relief begin to swallow him whole as Bucky’s own lips quirk, eyes sparkling in a way Steve’d forgotten they even _could_ , it’s been so long since they were that bright, that devoid of shadows.

“You blush pretty enough to make my heart skip a beat,” and Bucky doesn’t look away once, doesn’t break eye contact as he reaches for Steve’s hand to lead it to his chest, all slow-measured motion and the sensuous splay of fingertips. 

“See?” And yeah, Steve does, Steve feels the thrill of Bucky’s bounding blood under his palm, the way it trips after long stretches of the kind of racing that sends fire through the veins, and Steve’s lightheaded with it, with Bucky’s open eyes, Bucky’s beating heart, Bucky, _Bucky_ —

“What’s it mean?”

Steve laughs for lack of anything else to do, to give, to be.

“What’s what mean?” he strokes his fingers down the length, across the breadth of the skin and bone covering Bucky’s pounding heart. “This?”

“Hell,” Bucky grins wicked, presses Steve’s touch against his body all the firmer. “ _This_ means you’re a sight for sore eyes, punk.” 

And oh, god. Steve’s never felt this full of _joy_ —

“Nah. I mean, ‘Buck’.”

Steve freezes. The joy stills.

“You said ‘Buck’,” the words are made of the same acid Steve’d been swallowing before, except this kind makes holes, leaves open wounds; this kind of bleeding won’t ever be stemmed. “What’s it mean?”

Steve can’t speak. Steve can’t breathe, or swallow.

Bucky’s smile fades a little, but he just shakes his head, and lets go of Steve’s hand.

It takes Steve a moment before he thinks to take his palm from Bucky’s chest, in kind.

“Forget it,” Bucky brushes it off. “You my doctor, then? My apologies,” bats his lashes a little, and Steve’s ribs fucking _hurt_. “Bad form and whatnot, to flirt with your medical professional.”

Steve doesn’t know what his expression gives away, but Bucky’s eyes go a little wide, and he reaches again for Steve’s hand, which Steve’s too desperate, too full of aching, too deafened by the shattering sounds of his own goddamn heart to fight.

“Unless you’d rather I did?” Bucky asks, a little hopeful. “ _I_ don’t think it’s bad form, personally,” and his lips quirk again, and oh god, it’s gonna kill Steve, this is what will kill him.

“And god knows I don’t _want_ to stop,” Bucky confesses, the same put-upon shyness that Steve remembers from a lifetime ago.

Yes. Yes, this—of _everything_ —is what will kill him. 

“Hey, hey, gorgeous,” Bucky frowns, and for everything, Steve hates himself for putting that expression there, regardless of anything else. “What’s the matter?”

Bucky struggles against his sheets to lean, to sit upward.

“I,” and Bucky’s hand goes to his head, and he drops back flat to the bed. “Woah.”

“Are you alright?” Steve asks, heart in his throat for its tatters, for the way it shreds in pounding.

“I’m real dizzy, I,” and there are footsteps, the physicians and attendants having seen the shift in Bucky’s readings. 

“Can’t see,” Bucky moans, and then stills. Unnaturally, he stills. “Wait.” And where within a given range the monitors taking note of Bucky’s every move from skin to cell, they begin blinking: warning just as Bucky breathes his own:

“Wait.”

And oh, god: those eyes have every shadow back in them, big as they grow and heavy as they stare as Bucky starts to gasp without breathing, without any air really filling his lungs, he is terror and terrified; he is horror and horrified—he is soaked in blood, no one’s more than his own and his eyes are raw and _god_ , Steve can’t take it.

“It’s not, safe, it’s not, I’m,” he looks to Steve, and it couldn’t have gotten worse, it couldn’t have, so how _does_ it get worse: “You’re—” 

“His vitals are—” one of the technicians starts, but then the flashing turns to alarms, audible ones, as Bucky’s eyes roll back and then glaze, again and again as he starts to shake, starts to claw at his own skin, and Steve can't help but to leap for him, but to try and grasp his hand as it thrashes and calm him, _stop_ him—

“What’s happening?” Steve cries out, unable to stop himself from demanding of the nurses, the doctors as they move around him, because Bucky is everything, and it’s Bucky’s heart on the table pounding death knolls but it’s Steve’s, it is _Steve’s_ —

“Is he, he’s,” Steve tries to stop Bucky from doing himself harm, from flailing unmoored; “Help him!” he gasps, begs as Bucky babbles, half-lost to his own mind, and its gaps.

“They’ve found me, they’re gonna—”

“No, no,” Steve breathes, desperate for something, to offer _something_. “You’re safe, Bu—” he stops himself from saying the name, the name that means nothing, that breaks two hearts, apparently, and god, but Steve can’t _help him_.

“You’re safe, I promise,” he tries anyway, but Bucky’s shaking, seizing, trembling.

“They’re coming, they’ll, they’ll—”

And he catches Steve with his hand and hisses, vile: 

“The _mission_ , I,” and he’s shaking so hard, so _hard_ as he holds to Steve enough to bruise, close to breaking.

“They’ll kill you,” he bites out; “I’ll, I’ll kill,” his eyes are wild, elsewhere, and it sends the rushing blood in Steve’s veins to go cold. “It, the Asset,” he gasps, chest barely moving for what should have been a breath but does nothing, does nothing but strangle Steve and end him to see it, to feel it as Bucky’s lips form soundless words: “Kill, I’m, kill...”

And the monitors shriek, and the doctors are rushing, and Steve can do nothing but watch as Bucky seethes out one last word before he falls backward, boneless: so fucking still: 

“ _Run_.”

______________________________

Steve’s staring out of the window, seeing absolutely nothing, when T’Challa comes to him.

“It was simply a sedative that they administered,” the King assures him, walking past Bucky’s prone form on the bed to stand next to Steve. “No harm done.”

Steve thinks he’d do well to laugh, but he doesn’t think he remembers how.

No _harm_. Fuck.

“He doesn’t know me.”

“He wasn’t violent.”

Steve huffs, screws his eyes shut against the burn. “Just to himself.”

Jesus. _Just_.

“As likely to have been a side effect of the procedure as anything else, Captain,” T’Challa says gently. “You know this.”

“Still,” Steve shakes his head, and stares out into the blur of a beauty that doesn’t touch him; cannot fucking _touch_ him. “He didn’t know me. His eyes—”

Steve’s voice cracks; he doesn’t think he could give a shit, doesn’t think he’d have bothered to stop it even if he could have, if he’d had the power.

“Even at first, they were bright and kind and they were _then_ ,” because oh, god, they were _then_ , they were a time long lost and Steve should have realized, Steve should never have thought to hope and have fallen so deep into the lull of false relief that he’d be dropped so hard and left so broken, but fuck, _fuck_.

“But they didn’t,” Steve chokes; “ _he_ didn’t,” and he can’t say it. He can barely think it.

_His eyes didn’t love me. He didn’t love me._

Steve keeps staring out at nothing, as Bucky sleeps. He doesn’t notice when T’Challa leaves.

______________________________

Bucky wakes in short fits for about a day. Steve offers him water, which he takes with the politest of _thank yous_ and the brittlest of smiles, confusion in every line and plane of his face before he drifts back to sleep.

Steve tends to sit in the chair next to him, cradling the cup in his hands until Bucky stirs again, and he can pour another.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says, and oh: of all the first words Bucky’s uttered to Steve, far too many times, these may crush him the deepest.

“Why?” Steve asks, taking the empty cup from Bucky’s grasp.

“I just,” Bucky stares down, brow furrowed. “I feel like I’ve, like you were…”

He fists his hand in the sheets, frustrated.

“I feel like I needed to say that, and maybe I didn’t,” is what he eventually says, eyes big and trusting and still too far at sea.

“Don’t be sorry,” Steve places a hand on Bucky’s forearm—friendly, not intimate. “You haven’t done anything to be sorry for.”

“Oh,” Bucky says, after a moment, but he still looks unsettled. “Okay.”

He drifts to sleep again, and Steve almost wishes for the sedative, for Bucky’s sake.

At least that sleep was something almost peaceful. 

(Not just for Bucky’s sake, Steve admits to himself. God. No.

Not _just_ for Bucky’s sake.)

______________________________

Bucky stay awake longer, and longer, and Steve doesn’t know whether it pieces his heart back together or crushes it further beyond repair. 

Sometimes he wakes to Steve sketching him, without any heart in it. One time, Bucky frowns at what he sees on the paper.

“What is it?” Steve asks, half-hearted.

“You can do better.”

Steve doesn’t answer, doesn’t hope, doesn’t despair.

Isn’t sure how much he can feel, just then.

But it does help him to rally, to remember the words he spoke to Bucky on their last night, the last night he’d _prayed_ would be anything but. 

_I will do whatever is in my power to give you the life, and the freedom, that you deserve._

He’d meant it. He loves too deep to _not_ have meant it.

_And maybe, just maybe, if you want to know me again, if you came to care for me at all, we…_

He steels himself.

He is nothing if not a man of his word; except no.

No: he is a man of his _heart_ , and his heart is in the bed beside him.

He can do this. He _will_ do this.

There’s nothing else.

He does little things, like massaging Bucky’s calves the way that always relaxed him: innocuous touch against tense muscles. He ties Bucky’s hair up for him when it starts to curl just so into his face. Bucky eyes him questioningly, every time, but never asks. Steve never says anything. Words are scarce between them.

But there’s a simplicity in the silence. It doesn’t move the rough edges of Steve’s still-broken heart, and therefore the pain is lessened.

At least: the pain of breathing. 

Fuck, but Steve is a selfish bastard. 

He decides, upon seeing Bucky staring wistfully out the window, that he owes Bucky better. He owes his own heart better. 

He goes outside and brings flowers for Bucky's room, because Bucky always loved growing things. The idea of killing never appealed to him, even in the guise of the enemy at war, because growing things, living things; he had such an appreciation for their delicacy. For the miracle of them. 

Bucky smiles for the first time, wide despite the shadows, and glowing, and Steve hates that he spent any time putting that off, stifling that light: Steve’s heart beats heavy and maybe it flays itself in the process like so many shards of glass, but fuck. 

It's _worth_ it. 

He asks T’Challa what passes for a small housepet in the Kingdom, and is met with a smile and a small kitten of a breed Steve’s never seen—sleek and black and fitting, Steve suspects. The tiny creature is scared, though, and curls into Steve’s heat while still trembling, like it’s not sure what to do, or where to be, or who to trust, but Bucky takes it in his outstretched arm and holds it tight against his chest and murmurs at it, cuddles it soft and gorgeous and Steve feels his bones protest for the swelling in his chest because Bucky had always been a protector, from the street tabbies to his sisters to Steve himself in that first alley fight, and the way the animal purrs against the beat of Bucky’s heart is something that Steve wants to do, but aches at having the privilege just to watch.

Steve asks the palace chefs if they’re willing to try an old recipe. They’re more than happy to oblige, and so Steve’s able to relish less the taste of the famous Barnes Cherry Cobbler, and more the bliss on Bucky’s face when he takes his first bite.

“This is delicious,” Bucky says, halfway to a moan, and Steve forces down the rise of heat at that noise and just smiles, because Bucky is happy, in this moment, and that is what counts.

“I’m glad you like it.”

Bucky hums around the spoon in his mouth and nods, sneaking in another bite before speaking again.

“Don’t you got other things to be doing?”

Steve blinks. He wasn’t expecting that.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the company, promise,” Bucky backtracks, and smiles winningly. “Just,” he frowns a little, looks like he’s struggling behind his eyes, grasping for a rope just out of reach to save him from fighting just above the waves. 

“You’re,” and Steve’s breath catches, because he cannot hope, he _cannot_ hope—

“Important.”

Steve pauses. Again, not what he was expecting.

“Am I?” Steve forces his voice to be neutral, to be curious, and to not betray the pounding of his pulse. “What makes you say that?”

Again, Bucky looks like he’s grasping for something, the shadow of a thing far away. That should, Steve knows, speak to promise, speak to hope, but he can’t let himself get caught in that, not again.

He’s too in love with the man in front of him to split any of that love on what was, what might be.

All his love is here. Now.

“I dunno,” Bucky finally says, and sucks his lower lip like he always did, like he always has when he’s thinking real deep.

“You _feel_ important,” he says, looking down at the crumbs on his plate like they’re infinitely interesting, like maybe they hold all the things he can’t recall. “The most important…”

He trails off, then shakes his head and looks back up at Steve, smiling ruefully.

“Don’t know what the fuck I’m saying, do I?” he laughs a little, and Steve reminds himself again: the very _fact_ that Bucky’s dealing with this, _like_ this, is promising.

He should trust in it.

“You want some more?”

He trusts in _Bucky_ ; he figures that’s enough for now.

And Bucky’s eyes go wide, and his jaw drops, and he looks like a kid again, and yeah.

That’s enough for now, Steve knows it, when Bucky asks a little wonderingly:

“There’s _more_?”

______________________________

Steve’s on his way to Bucky’s room, as he always is when he’s not in Bucky’s room, when T’Challa finds him.

“He told me not to let you stay here, like this.”

Steve huffs.

“I’m sure he did.”

T’Challa hums, noncommittally. 

“I told him that I would do what was in my power, but that the choice rested with you,” he averts his gaze out the windows that line every hall, here; “in the end.”

So much is said underneath those words that Steve nearly falls apart for what it means, what it feels like it means.

“Thank you, T’Challa.”

That’s the best he can say in return.

“We've confirmed that the triggers are entirely inactive. He is free of any control beyond his own, if nothing else,” the King offers, but continues on, not expecting a response. 

Steve tells himself that’s enough. That would be enough. That _is_ enough.

“We _are_ working tirelessly, Captain,” T’Challa tells him solemnly. “You have my word.”

And he leaves Steve to go where he was always going to go, where he was always going to be, without another word.

______________________________

“I like this.”

It’s been a couple days since Steve brought in an iPod dock and a new sketchbook. Bucky hums along, and it shivers pleasantly in Steve’s veins every time. He brings Bucky one of his old favorite books, and he doesn’t, he makes sure that he _doesn’t_ surge with the promise of maybe when Bucky says it was good, but it was anticlimactic. He’d figured the plot twist from the first few pages.

Which would have been impossible, if he’d never read it before.

Steve makes himself read as little into that as humanly possible.

Fuck the fact that Steve’s a _super_ human, and he does a piss-poor job at pushing down that goddamn _hope_.

“I’m,” Bucky shifts, and Steve pauses in his sketch of the man’s profile, yet again. 

“I don’t think I feel dizzy,” Bucky considers, and Steve notices now the way his foot’s tapping to the beat of the song streaming through the room. “Would you,” Bucky glances at Steve, still careful about asking him for things, still not quite wise to the way Steve leaps to get him anything, give him _everything_ , and Steve’s pretty grateful for that, because the moment Bucky puts it all together, it’ll be very clear that Steve is absolute shit at hiding the heart on his sleeve.

“I mean, if it’s not too much trouble, I, just, would you...”

And Steve reads what Bucky wants in the way his legs shift; he’s at Bucky’s side, helping him to stand on his own without the physical therapist—who’s been clear with Steve that Bucky’s lack of balance has no physiological source, and quite probably stems back to conditioning that’s still tied up in wherever his hindbrain thinks it is—and once Bucky’s up, he’s solid. Which is a really great sign.

But Steve doesn’t want to let go.

“I still don’t understand why you’re here,” Bucky says, softly, and it’s only then that Steve realizes how close they are, how near Steve’s chest is to brushing Bucky’s on the inhale. “Wasting your time with me.”

“I’m not.” And maybe Steve takes a deeper breath, and lets that touch happen, because he’s selfish.

Maybe he falls into the widening of pupils in those eyes for a moment when he breathes out soft, true: “Wasting my time.”

And Bucky starts swaying a little, unconscious really—Steve figured he wanted to stand in order to move to the music, the song that’d been on had been a favorite for him to swing to, but now it’s slower, now it’s newer: not something he’d remember at all. 

“You said you thought I was important,” Steve licks his lips. “Did you ever think maybe it’s _you_ who’s important?”

Bucky snorts. “God no.”

Steve frowns at him. “Why?”

“Same reason I know you _are_ important,” Bucky tells him. “S’a feeling. And maybe that’s stupid, but,” Bucky looks down, almost embarrassed, but looks back up with the kind of resolve that always met Steve’s stubbornness toe-to-toe, and it takes Steve’s breath away, a little. 

“Can’t remember shit, right?” he says plainly. “So feeling’s all I’ve got.”

And that’s why none of it matters— _really_ matters—because that was the truth Steve was holding to that night, that last night; that _first_ night, just a night, really. In love.

Memories come and go, fade and are made new; but _feeling_.

That’s all anyone’s got, in the end. 

“I think maybe I danced,” Bucky says, looking down at his feet. “Once.”

He takes a deep breath, as if before a plunge, before he tries a fancy step or two.

Nails it.

“I can’t,” Steve confesses softly; “dance.” 

Bucky eyes him critically. “Now, I don’t believe that.”

Steve scoffs. “Want proof?”

Bucky tilts his head, considers him, and Steve doesn’t know if he’s wishing the heat into that gaze, or if it’s real.

“Let’s say I do, yeah.” And he reaches out. The song’s slow again.

Steve swallows around the heartbeat in his throat. He takes the hand that’s offered.

“You know me,” Bucky says, as he leads them, simple two-step back and forth.

 

“I’m not important,” Bucky insists again, and Steve opens his mouth to protest but Bucky’s speaking first.

“But,” he says, sucking his teeth as he works through the idea in his head; “but maybe I’m important to,” and he meets Steve’s eyes, never says his name, though his gaze speaks for him.

“You _care_.”

“Yes,” Steve doesn’t bother denying it. It’s so much less than what he’s guilty of. “What gave me away?”

“You hold me,” and it’s strange; Steve hadn’t noticed that for all that Bucky leads the motion, Steve’s the one embracing him. 

“And I feel safe,” Bucky confesses softly. “Like I’m supposed to be here,” and it goes straight to Steve’s fluttering heart. 

“Like it wouldn’t have been better if they’d fried my brains full on through,” and the flutter turns into a shiver in Steve’s chest at that, a dagger between the beating. 

“But you hold me like you’re happy I’m still here,” Bucky looks at him, with eyes that always knew how to look into him, and find the soul. “Like I _matter_.”

And Steve’s sure that Bucky can hear his heartbeat. Steve’s sure of it, because he can hear Bucky’s own, and he can’t control his body as it leans, as it relishes and begs for more when Bucky leans to and—

“Sorry.” Bucky freezes, backs away just enough for it to snag, for it to _hurt_. “I don’t,” he stammers; “I’m sorry.”

Steve swallows the burn that rises in him before it wells in his eyes.

“Don’t be.” The words come out raspier, harsher than he means them to. They scratch on Bucky’s skin, Steve can see it in the way he only just covers the flinch.

“You dance well enough,” Bucky tells him, his laugh stiff and awkward. “You could be taught, I think.”

And Steve meets the stilted humor, chuckles in a way that's pitchy, too high and too fucking tight.

“If I remember how, enough to explain it? I’ll show you,” Bucky says, and whatever drives it, or lives behind it, Steve can’t tell. “If you want.”

And god. _God_. If only Bucky _knew_.

“I’ll hold you to that.”

If only Bucky _knew_ how much Steve _wants_.

______________________________

Almost a month into this new world, this new life, this new normal of loving and learning all at once: Steve’s showering. 

Steve, in his solitude, won’t pretend he didn’t work himself off to the thought of Bucky’s hands, of Bucky’s breath, of Bucky’s lips—

Steve won’t pretend that’s how it is, every time.

He’s rinsing, braced against the marble wall, breathing deep of the steam and trying his hardest not to _think_ , when a voice speaks through the room—much like JARVIS, coming from nowhere.

“Captain Rogers,” and that’s the voice of the Head Physician. There’s heat everywhere around Steve, and yet he’s suddenly cold. “Your immediate presence is requested in Convalescence.” 

Steve’s out of the shower and grabbing the first clothes he finds without stopping for a fucking towel.

Because what if something’s happened? What if something went wrong, or if Bucky got hurt, or if the procedure had some unforeseen consequence that had been slowly eating away at him, slowly poisoning him somehow from the inside, what if they’d missed something, what if Bucky’s—

Steve’s on his way to hyperventilating as he turns for the door to his rooms.

What he sees in the doorway, though.

 _That_ makes it impossible to breathe.

“Steve.”

And there, framed by the thrown open door—no need for locks, not here—right hand bracing the whole of his weight against the wood as his chest heaves against the thin white of clinical garb: _there_.

There, and then crossing the distance, coming closer, and Steve can hear his every breath before he can feel them, before they lift and clench the heart in his chest like the whisper of a breeze: there.

 _Bucky_.

“Steve, Steve, Steve,” Bucky repeats it, like he can build a reality between them with every letter, every stroke of a pen to draw letters, of a pulse to pump blood: with every footfall as he draws closer, as he cups Steve’s cheek in his hand and blinks out tears to those impossible lashes while catching Steve’s own against his thumb as he whispers, as he curls the rest of his hand around Steve’s jaw and draws him close enough to rest his chest against Bucky’s own, to feel the words as they spill out:

“My _Stevie_.”

Steve’s not entirely sure this isn’t a dream. Steve’s not entirely sure he’s not dead somewhere, and drifting. Like there really is a God somewhere, who can’t decide it Steve goes up or down, in the end.

“Buck?” he barely dares to breathe.

“Yeah,” Bucky swallows, and Steve feels it run through his body as Bucky leans in, rests his brow against Steve’s and moves his hand to brace on Steve’s chest. “Yeah, baby.”

Steve’s world condenses down entirely to that hand on his chest.

“What,” Steve chokes, struck dumb as everything he knows is just the press of his heartbeat into an open palm, and maybe that’s all it’s ever been; no.

No, not maybe.

That _is_ all it’s ever been.

“Buck, how did you, you were—”

“Side effect.” Bucky says softly, marveling, mourning, _here_. “Like, coming out of anesthesia, they said, just,” he shakes his head, expression twisted in apology, in sadness, in relief and Steve is so close, so close to giving into the offer of sharing those feelings and settling in the last of them: relief.

 _Here_. All of him, mind and body, and, and...

“Just took a little longer for the serum to set me straight.”

“You’re,” Steve reaches, threads one hands through Bucky’s and cups the other at his cheek as he stares, just _stares_. “So you’re, you…”

And Steve’s thumb grazes just the corner of Bucky’s mouth, and when it does Bucky’s eyes never leave his as Bucky kisses soft against the whorls of Steve’s thumbprint, and oh.

 _Oh_.

“Is this real?” Steve whispers, and Bucky turns to kiss Steve’s knuckle, to suck it soft between his lips before trailing teeth and tongue to kiss the pulse in Steve’s wrist, as he leads Steve’s hand from Steve’s own chest, to the center of Bucky’s.

“Does it _feel_ real?” Bucky asks him.

And there, beneath Steve’s hand, is a heart full and fierce; there, against his skin, is a heat he couldn’t fathom on his own.

 _There_ , laid wide before him, are eyes that look at Steve with _love_.

“Yes,” Steve gasps, fucking _sobs_ : “oh my god.”

And when Steve falls forward into Bucky, Bucky’s arm snakes around him; Bucky’s body is what it’s always been, does what it’s always done, and bends to be his home.

“Oh my _god_ ,” Steve chokes into the hollow of Bucky’s throat, and Bucky runs fingers up through his hair, stroking careful and rhythmic and true. 

“You were gonna wait for me,” Bucky breathes against the shell of Steve’s ear, the rumble all-consuming where Steve leans against his chest. “You were gonna go all-in on winning me over all over again,” and Bucky’s hand stops stroking, and Steve moans a little for it, but that hand doesn’t leave, just braces at the base of Steve’s neck and cradles him all the closer as Bucky growls, as Bucky presses lips to his head:

“You fucking _idiot_."

“Was pretty sure amnesia didn’t count as the end of the line last time,” Steve is steady enough with the heartbeat at his ear to push back, to stand firm: and the last time had been a sinister forgetting, railing at Steve’s body, calling for his blood; this had been wholly different. This had been a forgetting that had tried to hollow out his soul. 

But it’s over. It’s done.

“Why would it start now?"

They’re _here_.

Steve hears the catch in Bucky’s pulse before Bucky eases him up to look at him, straight on.

“I didn’t think I could love you any more than I already did, Steven Grant,” Bucky says, voice strained as his eyes water: “but good _god_.”

And when Steve lets himself sink into those words and what they hold, what they mean; when Steve lets himself _go_ it is for tears and laughter and clinging too tight to Bucky, pressing them so close together Steve can’t breathe except to breathe in _Bucky_ , and it’s so right Steve can barely stand it, can barely hold himself together, but Bucky clings just as desperately to him in kind.

“Stay with me?” Steve whimpers, buries his face just a little closer into the tear-slick skin of Bucky’s collarbone, the thin stretch where his pulse presses to meet Steve’s open lips.

“Forever,” Bucky whispers into Steve’s ear, and then rests his head atop Steve’s, kisses the top and breathes in deep: “For _always_.”

And Steve moans at that, Steve breaks for that, because whatever he’s meant to hold and stand is insufficient to keep that promise held tight enough, close enough, and hell if Steve will let any shred of it fly free, or get lost.

“I’m yours, Stevie,” Bucky says, as if hearing every fear and need in Steve’s body, and holding it close so that it can breathe fully, know shelter, set soft and to rights before it is soothed away. 

“Every heartbeat,” Bucky rubs his cheek against Steve’s to murmur soft against his ear, to send shivers down his limbs, electric. “Every thought and bit and breath,” Bucky vows, and then he pulls back, but only just enough for their eyes to meet, still close enough that Steve can trace the feeling of the air that moves between Bucky’s lashes with each blink.

“Not a damn thing in me that doesn’t belong to you,” Bucky tells him, shows his soul unabashed inside his eyes; “Not anymore.”

And having it said, known: having that be true beyond just wishing and meaning and wanting and feeling—knowing that is _fact_ and irrefutable, undeniable, and seeing that soul untethered by the claws of hate and fear for the first time in too long, seeing it clear and true and offered in whole to _Steve_ —

Good god. 

Steve has no words, no scope, no way to convey the magnitude of _meaning_ , save to capture Bucky’s lips and pray that feeling bleeds through.

So that’s exactly what he does.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://hitlikehammers.tumblr.com).


End file.
